Leo the Terror
by Indubitably Flummoxed
Summary: In which Leo is forced to attend the scourge of young, hyperactive demigods: school. He must face not only homework, the bus, scraping gum off the bottoms of seats in detention, and questionable cafeteria lunches, but also a homeroom teacher who isn't exactly a kind, humorous soul. Oh, yeah, Mrs. Stodge is really going to rue the day she met Leo Valdez.
1. Leo the Schoolboy

**Hello, people of FanFiction! Here I am again with another new story. I should probably stop publishing new stuff and work on finishing my old stuff, but this idea just kind of attacked me, and now writing it is like a really bad Miley Cryus song: I CAN'T STOP! I'm thinking this is going to end up being kind of long, too - my current plan has it at 65 chapters, give or take a few. I'm glad you took the time to read, and I'd be even more glad if you took the time to review! Enjoy chapter 1!**

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**Chapter 1 - Leo the Schoolboy**

Leo Valdez was rudely awakened by the less-than-pleasing to the ears sound of Call Me Maybe… being sung by one of his half-brothers. Off-pitch, off-key, and generally sounding pretty bad. He rolled over in his bed, eyes still mostly closed, half-asleep, and looked over at the glowing digits on his clock.

"Why the Hades are we showering at six o'clock in the morning?" he groaned loudly, drawing a look from most of the other kids in the Hephaestus cabin.

Nyssa gave him a glare, shaking her head slightly. "Leave it to you to forget, Valdez," she said, with just a hint of disdain in her tone. She sighed. "I would have liked to forget, myself. Chiron is making us attend school." She said this in the same tone as one might say _Chiron is making us shovel pegasus dung_ or _Chiron is hosting a formal party where we all have to wear togas and sing soprano_.

Leo bolted out of bed. "Um, no, this boy does not do school," he said, pointing to himself. "Monster fighting and world saving I can do. But not school!"

Nyssa smiled wryly. "You will if Chiron says you will. Get changed." She left the cabin, grabbing a backpack from beside her bed and swinging it onto her shoulder.

Leo muttered some questionable words under his breath and pulled on his clothes, not caring about things like color coordination or whether things were forwards or backwards. Well, actually… he did care about that. He turned his shirt so the front was actually in the front, and then he was ready to go.

He still couldn't believe he had to go to school. Didn't he have battle training or something to do? Surely that was more important than school! Battle training helped him make sure that he didn't die when some monster who thought he might be tasty decided it was snacktime! Leo didn't want to die, not when he had so many things to live for, like coffee and Oreos.

He was going to regret giving in without a fight, he was sure of it.

* * *

Leo's first indicator that today was not going to be a pleasant day was his bus ride. The minute he stepped on, he knew this was going to be another case of stereotypical school bus: popular kids sit in the back, losers and nerds sit in the front, the kids who kept to themselves hunkered down in the middle, trying to memorize their locker combinations, and a certain sixteen-year-old demigod was stuck by himself.

It was just his luck that the camp van - a new addition to the camp equipment - had been filled up before he had made it down from breakfast. It was Shane's fault, really, he'd taken too long getting out of the bathroom. The way that kid sang in the shower, you'd think he wanted to switch over to the Apollo cabin.

What other choice did he have than to go to the back? Confidence wins friends, right? Money and food could too, he supposed, but since he didn't have any of that, confidence would have to do.

He chose a seat next to a guy who looked like he'd been up since four that morning making sure every hair was in place and across from a couple girls. Yeah, they seemed a little annoying and giggly, but their looks could make up for that. Time to turn on the ol' Leo Charm.

"How are you doing this fine morning?" Leo asked with exaggerated cheesiness, flashing a not so white toothy smile.

The girls looked at him a little oddly. That was good, great even. That meant he had their attention. Attention was the beginning of attraction, wasn't it?

One of them giggled in a more slightly hesitant way, and the other one reached into her backpack and pulled out a two-inch three-ring binder. "I've been having some trouble opening my binder," she said in that high-pitched, bubbly voice that girls use when they flirt. A good beginning, Leo thought. "Do you think you could get it open for me?" She reached over and dropped it in his lap.

He picked it up and inspected it. "Of course I can," he said, although he was a bit confused.

As if she was reading his mind, she said, "Um, it's a little hard to get open, and I don't want to chip a nail." She held out a perfectly manicured hand in front of him.

Leo shook his head. Women and their nails. What was so important about fingernails, anyway? He pressed down on the tab to open it, and when it didn't budge, he pressed it again, this time using both hands. He was sure his face was turning red just a little. Okay, maybe a lot. What kind of super awesome bad boy can't open a three-ring binder?

"This might be… just a bit… impossible," Leo grunted as he strained against the binder. Finally he got it to pop open and flashed a grin at the girl. "Knew I'd get it eventually, didn't you?" He was still embarrassed. Right now on the Manliness Meter, he was about negative five hundred.

"Thank you so much, I can't believe you could do that," the girl said, staring at him in awe and batting her eyelashes. Leo was baffled. Had he really managed to get a girl already? He knew he was good, but he didn't know he was _that_ good! She had really pretty eyes, he managed to think. They were such a nice shade of blue…

The girl reached out and quickly snapped the binder shut. Leo jumped and let out a shriek that could rival Celine Dion, then looked down to see the middle ring was now firmly clamped around his left hand. He shook it wildly, trying to shake the binder off, but it held fast. "Owowowowowow!" he pulled at it, trying to get it off of him, but it only increased the pain.

The girl who had asked him to open the binder grinned and turned back to her friend, who was practically collapsed over the seat in silent giggles. When Leo finally managed to pry the binder off his hand, the girl swiftly snatched it from him. "That's my Biology binder, and I'll be needing it. It wasn't nice to meet you, I'm sure the pleasure's all yours." She whipped out a cell phone and opened the Instagram app to look at pictures of random guys.

Leo, rejected, turned away from them. He looked at Mr. Every Hair In Place, who was sitting next to him, and said, "Not a word, my friend. Not a word."

Mr. Every Hair In Place didn't even acknowledge Leo, he just turned a frosty gaze out the window. _Nice guy_, Leo thought.

Thankfully, it wasn't long before the bus arrived at the school, and Leo jumped up the instant the driver put on the brakes. He had one loss. So what? He was a smokin' hot single demigod, someone was going to pick up on his charm, manliness, and rugged good looks soon.

He had to stop by the front office to pick up a class schedule, which the secretary desk lady gave him along with a look that had mistrust all over it. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn't combed his hair that morning (he was fighting a losing battle there) or maybe it was his expression that just exuded mischief. Either way, Desk Lady wasn't going to be joining his fan club.

His locker number was 457, which took him forever to find because the school was a maze of tiny hallways where everyone was squished together like sardines. Of course, every girl he passed who wasn't a hideous monster, he gave his best smile, but for some reason no one responded to his friendliness. In fact, there was one girl who was almost a head taller than him who looked like she kind of wanted to slap him.

All these misadventures resulted in Leo being a minute or two late to homeroom. Not bad for a first day, right? Apparently his teacher didn't think so, because the second he stepped in there, she fixed him with a glare that could have scared the pants off Ares.

"Hello!" Leo said brightly, waving at the room in general. A couple kids waved back awkwardly, but most of them just stared blankly at him while the teacher looked down at her computer.

"And which one are you?" she asked.

"Leo Valdez, funny, sporty, and single." He winked as he said that. "Yeah, you heard me right, ladies. Single and ready to mingle."

Leo saw one girl wrinkle her nose in disgust.

"Find a seat, Mr. Valdez, and I will not tolerate those kind of inappropriate behaviors in this classroom."

Inappropriate behaviors? Sure, maybe inappropriate in the nineteenth century! Although, Leo reasoned, she did look like she might have been born back then.

"My name is Mrs. Stodge," she said, looking around like she was daring someone to challenge it. "I will be your homeroom advisor and your math teacher. Disrespect will not be tolerated. There are rules I expect you to follow at all times while you are here. First of all, the moment you enter this room, there will be none of this ridiculous horsing around. You have entered the halls of learning, and it is a place meant to be undisturbed by the childish worries of a high school student. Second, you will not speak while I am speaking. It is common courtesy, which…" Mrs. Stodge droned on and on, and Leo found his eyelids drooping. He couldn't fall asleep, because he drooled in his sleep. That would be the perfect image breaker.

Homeroom was fifteen minutes long, and Leo was convinced by the end that Mrs. Stodge was a child of Chronos, because she could make that amount of time stretch on indefinitely. Finally the bell for first period rang, and everyone got up as fast as they could, eager to get out of her room.

"Homework, copy down the rules of common courtesy, all of which must be followed in my class, to be handed in tomorrow," Mrs. Stodge declared in a voice that said _I am the boss, and if you don't do your homework I will eat your face and send the Furies after you_. Leo could see the dismayed expressions of everyone around him, and for good reason. What kind of teacher gives you homework in _homeroom_? Homeroom was supposed to be announcements and then you're out of there!

"Oh, and Mr. Valdez, I would like a word," Mrs. Stodge added.

Leo went up to her desk, not scared in the slightest. Intimidated, a little bit. Annoyed, for sure. But not scared.

"Tardiness is not acceptable," she said. "And I will not condone any more of your asinine drollery. You may go to first hour."

Leo left, feeling like he'd just been smacked across the face. She hadn't been that terrible to him, but he was still pretty steamed. He was pretty sure Mrs. Stodge had given him a nice healthy burn, especially because he wasn't sure what asinine meant. It kind of sounded like a bad word. He was pretty sure it wasn't, though, because cussing was probably on Mrs. Stodge's list of Stuff That I Don't Allow. When he thought about it, he wasn't sure what drollery meant, either. But in his defense, his childhood had been kind of messed up. You couldn't exactly blame him for failing seventh grade English and Vocabulary!

She needed to lighten up, Leo thought as he sat in science class listening to the teacher read a boring syllabus. She needed to lighten up loads, because right now she was a nasty old buzzkill.

_Oh, yeah_, Leo thought. _Mrs. Stodge is really going to rue the day she met Leo Valdez._

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**Well... I don't think I have anything to say here! Except that I don't own PJO... clearly. Thanks again for reading!**


	2. Leo the Spy

**Chapter 2, One Day Later! Impressive, no? I got a depressing amount of feedback for the last chapter, though, so I was kind of wondering about why that might be. The best thing I could come up with is there wasn't enough to review about, so I'm adding a little more! This is a short chapter, nothing really that special, but I hope you enjoy anyway! **

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**Chapter 2 - Leo the Spy**

"Ew. Just… ew."

Leo was sitting at a table that he didn't dare put his hand under, because he was sure there would be at least five layers of gum there, and nervously poking at what was supposed to be his lunch with a plastic fork.

"Is it supposed to be that color?" Percy asked, looking at his own lunch. The group from Camp Half-Blood - Percy, Jason, Piper, Annabeth, Nyssa, Malcolm, Clarisse, and Leo himself - usually hung out together at lunch, because it saved them the effort of having to meet new people. Leo didn't have a single class with any of them. He wasn't sure if it was karma, or fate, or just plain bad luck, but he hadn't been having much luck making other friends. Thank Zeus it was finally Friday.

"It's not going to kill you, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth said, rolling her eyes and taking a bite. She somehow managed to choke it down, then stole Jason's water bottle and chugged about half of it. When she finally gave it back to him, almost empty, she said, "Um, see? It's fine. You just need a little something to… wash it down…"

"I bet I could bust the vending machines," Leo said, looking longingly over at the candy bars and bags of chips separated from him by a dumb plastic box.

"You don't want to get in trouble the first week," Piper said, then blushed. "You kind of, uh, pick these things up along the way. You know, if you've been kicked out of as many schools as I have."

"You've been kicked out in the first week before?" Percy asked, looking at her in amazement. "Wow. It usually took me at least a few months before I destroyed something."

"Percy, that is not an achievement!" Annabeth snapped.

"Oh, yeah, of course not," Percy mumbled, embarrassed. "I just _love_ school."

Then the lunch bell rang, and students began packing up their food and throwing away disgusting things like bologna sandwiches, overripe bananas, cookies that had the consistency of Jawbreakers, and of course, the cafeteria lunches.

"Didn't have much of an appetite anyway," Leo lied, just as his stomach let out a huge growl.

"Hey, what class do you have next?" Jason asked Leo while they were headed to their lockers.

Leo groaned. "I have…" he paused for a dramatic effect, "...math with Mrs. Stodge."

Jason let out a short laugh. "Have fun, man." Then he was off.

Leo sighed and kicked a random locker, and the door popped right open. He looked around to make sure no one was watching him, then took a curious look inside. It was a girl's locker, that much was obvious. Girly magnets and pictures of One Direction all over the place. There was even a tiny magnetic chandelier hanging from the top shelf. Why would you even need a chandelier in your locker? It was a storage space, not a fancy dining room!

He then realized it would be just like him to still be gawking inside while someone - maybe even the owner of the locker - saw him, so he slammed the door shut quickly, and winced when he heard something crash.

_I would make a really good spy_, he thought. Being a spy would be fun, too. You could wear black and have cool gadgets and go to special spy school, where there would definitely be no Mrs. Stodge. She wouldn't be able to spy on dust. He was even more convinced that he had an aptitude for being a spy when he opened his locker on the first try… for the first time that whole week. "You can just call me 'Fingers'," Leo muttered proudly to himself as he stuffed his math books into his backpack.

What was stopping him from being a spy, anyway? He could be a spy if he thought he could be a spy! And, he thought with a hint of satisfaction, It's sure to drive Mrs. Stodge nuts.

* * *

Leo earned himself some strange looks on the way to Math, always keeping his back against the wall (once he'd accidentally flattened himself against someone's locker, shutting it and making them call him some naughty words), holding a finger up like it was a gun, and looking around with those shifty eyes that just scream _I am a spy! Hear me roar!_

He paused outside the door to Mrs. Stodge's classroom, wondering how he should make his grand entrance. He had to snicker a bit at the fact that she would probably have a conniption and scream at him about drollery something or other. Leo reminded himself that he still had to look up what drollery actually meant.

Kids who were walking past him into class were looking at him weird, and whenever someone did that, he turned the shifty eyes on them, which made them leave him alone right away. Being a spy was awesome, you could intimidate anyone. Or maybe they just thought he'd escaped from the mental ward.

When the halls started to empty, Leo tied his sweatshirt around his forehead and jumped through the door, singing loudly, "DUM DUM DUMDUM DUM DUM DUMDUM DUM DUM DUMDUM DUM DUM DUMDUMDUM!" Oh, yeah, he was rocking that Mission Impossible theme. You could just call him Jim Phelps, leader of the Impossible Missions Force.

He made his way to his seat and sat down calmly, aware of all the attention that he was getting from the rest of the class. That was the point. Leo Valdez was a pretty huge distraction.

"Take your sweatshirt off your head, Mr. Valdez, so we can begin class," Mrs. Stodge said. She was clearly not amused.

"Now, lady, do you want the truth or do you want me to tell you what you want to hear?" Leo asked, leaning against his desk and giving his best poker face.

"I would like you to take that off of your head," she repeated. Leo noticed she had reached for a stapler. Maybe she was resisting the urge to throw it at him.

"Mr. Valdez is incapacitated," Leo said. He had to hold back a grin. This was way too fun.

"He will be for sure if he keeps pushing Stodge like that," Leo heard the guy behind him whisper.

Mrs. Stodge stood up and walked towards his desk so she was standing right in front of him. Leo realized that Mrs. Stodge was really short; he was practically staring her down.

"Jolly good day, isn't it?" Leo asked brightly.

"I have every right to give you detentions for the rest of the month," Mrs. Stodge intoned gravely.

"Spies don't go to detention. OOPS! BLEW MY COVER GOTTA GO!" Leo got up and tried to dash away, but he tripped over his shoelace and ended up sprawled across the floor. This time he got a laugh from the other kids in the class. Sure, the one time he wasn't trying. His face also kind of hurt where he slapped his cheek against the cool tiles. Any other kid would have been too embarrassed to get up. Not Leo.

He hopped up as fast as he could and winked at the class. "I meant to do that, guys. So I could make you laugh. And it worked, didn't it?"

Leo heard a howl of laughter from the back of the room, and he turned to see a short girl with a big acne problem and greasy hair tied back in pigtails doubled over, basically screaming. That was meant to be laughing? It sounded more like a cat that got thrown into a trash compactor! Not that Leo knew what that sounded like or anything.

"We ignore her," Mr. Every Hair In Place from the bus on the first day said in his snooty tone. "Kind of like we ignore you." Oh. Ouch. Mr. Every Hair In Place zinged him a good one.

"Mr. Valdez, _take the sweatshirt off of your head_!" Mrs. Stodge repeated for the third time. Leo, sensing that his joke had lost its value by now, did as she asked and smiled innocently at her. Not because he was hoping to get off easy; because he was hoping it would infuriate her.

"You will not be a distraction in this class," she continued. "You will actively and enthusiastically participate. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Leo said, but his mind was worlds away. He was already thinking, trying to formulate a plan for what kind of mischief he was going to cause next week.


	3. Leo the Enthusiastic

**I, uhhh, I can't actually think of anything to say in this Author's Note, so... have fun reading, I guess...**

**Thank you Guest and thein273 for reviewing! I really appreciate it! ( Guest: I'm not even sure how to answer that question for myself :D) **

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**Chapter 3 - Leo the Enthusiastic**

"So… this is really… uh, fascinating, don't you think?"

Leo was leaning against the counter that ran along the side of the science room, watching his lab partner peer intently into a microscope.

"Sure," she replied, jotting down a few notes, not even looking in Leo's direction.

"I mean, looking at weird bacteria magnified by, like, five hundred… it's pretty cool, huh?"

That earned a glance from his lab partner. Sara, Leo thought her name was. He hadn't exactly been listening when the partners had been assigned, if he was being honest. But it wasn't cool to admit that he'd been building a bridge out of his erasers and pens. You did that when you were in third grade, not eleventh.

"You're weird" was all she said before going back to work.

"So I've heard. Care to tell me more?" Leo asked with a smirk that was meant to be cocky and attractive but actually probably looked like he was doing face muscle exercises.

"Why don't you work on the questions in the assignment?" she asked.

"Don't answer a question with a question!" Leo said, pretending to pout.

Sara rolled her eyes and said in an exasperated tone, "Fine, I'll work on the questions and you take a look at the bacteria!" She leaned over, grabbed her notebook, and shoved Leo at the microscope.

Leo looked in the microscope, but all he could see were a few weird-colored blobs. That stuff was on his skin and inside his body? Man, he was really starting to regret skipping the shower that morning. He was - for once - glad that PE was next, so he could take a quick stop in one of the shower stalls. The locker room showers had freezing water that just came out in one single jet, like a fire hose, but right now he would do anything to get rid of the feeling of all… those… germs…

"Hey, uhh, so whatcha doing tonight?" Leo asked Sara, mostly to take his mind off the topic it was currently on, but also because he hadn't given up on her yet. She hadn't shown any interest so far, but she hadn't, say, snapped his hand in a binder or anything!

"Volleyball practice," she replied offhandedly.

A straight, honest answer! Did that mean she wanted him to come? Because he was all on board for watching the varsity girls' volleyball practice. "Oh, that sounds great. Hey, what do you say I meet you there and-"

"Will you _stop_ hitting on me?!" she finally exclaimed, causing the people at microscopes on either side of them to stop working and give them a curious glance. "I _have_ a boyfriend!"

"Oh," Leo muttered, smiling awkwardly. He would have kind of liked to disintegrate instead; maybe even pixelate, that sounded pretty awesome. But, no. He was stuck. Of all the demigod powers he could have gotten, he got the one that could turn him into the Human Torch? Seriously, Dad? Why not something useful? Why couldn't Hephaestus be the god of invisibility?

Sara rolled her eyes and said to the still gawking spectators, "Show's over guys, the idiot's learned his lesson." She turned back to her worksheet and didn't acknowledge Leo's existence for the rest of class.

* * *

By lunchtime, Leo was still in a slightly less-than-good mood, and it didn't help that today's lunch appeared to be Bowling Ball Bake or something along those lines. Leo really needed to start bringing a sack lunch.

Leo, who had just had PE and was incredibly hungry, didn't care how bad it tasted as long as he had something in his stomach. He picked up his plastic fork and stabbed his food.

The plastic fork broke.

Leo held up the fork. It had two teeth missing.

Malcolm raised an eyebrow at the sight and tossed a Crunch bar at Leo. "Here you go. It's all I've got, though, so no complaining. I won it off a guy in my Honors Chemistry class who bet I wouldn't be able to recite the periodic table of elements."

"A fun size Crunch bar?" Leo exclaimed, holding it up. "I find nothing fun about this candy bar. It's tiny! I could eat about five of these in one bite!"

"Hey, I didn't make up the name," Malcolm said, flicking the broken-off fork teeth off the table.

"Is that Valdez kid over here?" a voice asked. Leo turned around to see a tall guy with shaggy blonde hair.

"That would be my brother," Nyssa said.

"Um, hi," Leo said, giving a tiny wave. His hand fell limp to his side when he saw the look that the guy gave him. "Do I know you?" he asked weakly.

The guy crossed his arms. "You were hitting on my girlfriend this morning."

Leo quickly scanned through the morning. He'd hit on a few girls, actually. Not like he was just going to throw that information out there or anything.

"Sara?" the guy asked, cracking his knuckles.

If Leo was that kind of guy, he would have gone pale and ran away faster than you can say 'Kronos'. But he wasn't that kind of guy. He was a little tougher than that.

Or maybe he was that kind of guy. He got up, vaulted over the table, and took off. The guy started chasing after him. To Leo's credit, he tried, but the other guy was faster, and he rugby-tackled Leo into another table, getting Leo a face full of someone's mac and cheese. When he stood up, shaking processed melted cheese out of his hair, the guy dragged him out of the room.

"So, umm… read any good books lately?" Percy asked, trying to ignore Leo's undignified shrieks of pain coming from the direction locker rooms.

"Yeah!" Malcolm replied enthusiastically. "A really great study on-"

Percy held up a hand to stop him. "No… not seriously. Never mind."

"Oh… okay..."

* * *

When Leo staggered into Math sporting two black eyes and about as many bruises as he had girls who'd turned him down, he was already having a bad day. It only got worse when he realized that he'd left his homework in his cabin. Yeah, he'd actually done it for once.

So, of course, he was the one Mrs. Stodge decided to pick on for not having his homework done.

"Did I not tell you last week that you were to participate in this class?"

"You did," Leo said, rubbing his swelling eye. It was a sign of how much pain he was in that he didn't even try to think up a snappy reply.

"In case I didn't make that clear enough before, that means finishing your homework! One more late assignment and you will find yourself in detention. That's a promise."

"Fine. That's great."

"And I won't tolerate this flippant attitude towards your studies. Understood?"

"Clear as day," Leo replied. "Can I get an ice pack?"

Mrs. Stodge glanced at his injuries. "After class."

In math that day, they were reviewing different formulas, a subject that Leo found dreadfully boring. He was almost terrified to admit that he even knew most of them. For once.

"I'm sure most of you have already memorized these formulas," Mrs. Stodge said, glancing at Leo like she was silently adding, except for you of course. Leo was a little stoked. He had a little more intelligence than that! Although maybe she'd been aware that his previous school was Wilderness School. Coach Hedge wasn't exactly a qualified teacher.

"Someone tell me how to calculate the volume of a cube."

Leo raised his hand (for once) and started bouncing up and down in his seat with a grin so huge he felt like his face might crack. "Ooh ooh ooh, I know I know I know!"

Mrs. Stodge crossed her arms and gave Leo a Classic Teacher Death Glare. "Mr. Valdez?"

"Um," he paused for a moment. He wasn't sure of the actual formula. He just knew how to solve the problem. "The, uh, side length cubed."

There was a moment of silence, and then Mrs. Stodge asked, "All right, then, someone tell me how to calculate the area of a circle."

Leo fist-pumped mentally. For once she couldn't say he was wrong! He happened to know this question, as well, so he stood up on his toes and said sweetly, "I know this one, too!"

"Fine, you answer this one too, Mr. Valdez."

"Pi times the radius squared!" Leo crossed his arms and tried to look confident, but he thought he just ended up looking like a doofus.

This time she didn't even acknowledge him, just turned to the rest of the class and said, "Surface area of a cylinder."

Leo jumped out of his chair yet again, this time knocking it over so it made a loud clatter against the floor. "OOOOOOH I KNOW THIS!"

"Let's let someone else have a turn, Mr. Valdez," Mrs. Stodge said dryly, calling on Mr. Every Hair In Place, whose name Leo found out for the first time was Whitney. Whitney Applegate. Leo thought the name fit. He knew the answer, and then the next question was asked.

Every time, Leo jumped up and insisted that he knew the answer, and he wasn't called on once. After a while, he didn't care much. It was becoming more like a game to him, to see how many different ways he could come up with to declare his knowledge, including but not limited to tap dancing - badly - and singing "I know the answer" to the tune of "There's No Business Like Show Business", tapping the person next to him on the shoulder and asking them to tell Mrs. Stodge that he knew the answer, and once, he tried to stand on his desk, but that just ended in the desk falling over and him jamming a few fingers while taking a rough landing on the floor.

When the bell rang, Leo gathered up his things and started to walk out the door, but paused right in the door frame and yelled back to Mrs. Stodge, "I participated!"

He went to his next class feeling satisfied with himself, so it was kind of hard for him to admit that it was probably a one-time thing.

* * *

When Leo woke up the next morning, his muscles were screaming in agony. He really regretted all the flamboyant moves he'd pulled in Math the day before. He should have known better than that; he'd just got beaten up for Zeus's sake!

Then again, the word _Leo_ didn't exactly go along perfectly with the phrase _he knew better_.

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**Loved the beginning, but the end flopped, in my opinion. Tell me what you thought about it! Doesn't that review box look awfully attractive? XD**


	4. Leo the Fruitcake

**This chapter is INTENSE. Haha, just kidding. Kind of. I wrote it all last night when I was kind of delirious from math homework, so I asked The Minun to look it over, and he thought it was all right, so here it is... **

**I'd also like to thank PJoHoOFan, lolcats, and Artemis Lovegood for reviewing the last chapter! **

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**Chapter 4 - Leo the Fruitcake**

Thursdays were the worst, in Leo's opinion. Have you ever been tossed into a blender and got beaten around for a while, then pulled out and been forced to run barefoot on a field of hot coals, then brutally attacked by an army of Laistrygonian giants, Cyclopes, and angry chihuahuas with only a pair of chopsticks as defense?

Leo hadn't either. But he was pretty sure it wouldn't feel much worse than a Thursday.

The thing about Thursdays was that Mr. Lawson (who Leo was sure was a long-lost relative of Coach Hedge's) made them run the so-called "obstacle course" in PE.

What was the obstacle course? Well, first of all, calling it the obstacle course was a severe understatement. It had been dubbed the Death Gauntlet by - who else? - Leo.

The Death Gauntlet started out with an Army Crawl, where barbed wire was set up about a foot off the ground. This went on for about fifty feet, and was pretty simple, but annoying if you got your shirt caught in it. One of the guys tried to do it shirtless so he could go faster, but it didn't really do much for him because he got a few pretty nasty scrapes across his back. Leo wasn't completely sure, but he'd heard that the guy had to get a tetanus shot afterwards. Either way, Leo was keeping his shirt on.

After you got out of the Army Crawl, they were to climb up a big pile of unstable boxes. About ten feet away was another pile of boxes, and the gap was separated by a few ladders that they were supposed to somehow walk or crawl across. A lot of the non-athletic guys just wrapped their arms and legs around it and slowly dragged themselves across.

If by some miracle you made it across that, there was another pile of crates stacked up along the back wall of the gym, and a rope hanging from the ceiling. Yeah. A rope swing. Once you got across there, you jumped down from the pile of crates, ran a few feet to the left, and began your return journey.

It was simple and easy, but majorly degrading. It was known as the Nectarine Nudge. You had to get down on your stomach, kind of in the planking position, only you could have your hands and feet on the floor, and use your nose or other parts of your face to roll a nectarine all the way across the gym back to the starting and finishing line. If your nectarine got out of your control, you had to go back and do the entire course all over again, and clean the gym floor of everyone's sweat after they were all done.

Mr. Lawson seemed to be of the opinion that if you couldn't do the whole thing in under two minutes, you were a yellow-bellied fruitcake.

* * *

Leo was standing at the starting line, squished in a giant crowd with a bunch of other guys, and wearing his gym clothes, which smelled like death because he'd forgotten to take them back to camp and get them washed.

Mr. Lawson blew his whistle, and everyone was off. Leo dropped down on his hands and knees and crawled under the wire, trying to inch himself forward using his hands, but they were slick with sweat, so all he was really doing was rubbing them around in the same place. He sighed and hoisted himself up a little higher, so he was in a low crawl position, trying desperately to not get his shirt caught in the barbed wire. He made it ten feet, twenty feet, thirty feet… he was still in a huge clump with the majority of the other guys. That was good; it meant he was making good time so far. By normal standards, that is. Mr. Lawson probably thought they were all fruitcakes.

But in Leo's attempts to keep his shirt free, he was forgetting about the lower half of his body, and while the upper half was going lower, the lower half was going higher. Leo didn't realize it until he heard a ripping sound. He spun his head around so fast he got a crick in his neck, and saw that his shorts were caught in the wire. They were kind of mangled and falling off. Leo cursed and rolled over on his back, making them rip even more, and started pulling at the fabric, trying to free his shorts from the clutches of the barbed wire.

Of course, that was when he started hearing the giggles. He allowed himself a quick glance at the direction of the sound, and saw a few of the girls standing around the door, holding a bag of soccer balls. They must have been sent in to get the equipment. Leo groaned. Even the fat kids were starting to catch up to him.

The girls were looking right at him, all right, because as a stupid guy once said, nothing hotter than a man under barbed wire, in his underwear, doing the army crawl in gym class.

As much as Leo hated to do it, his shorts were beyond saving, so he left them and finished the crawl. When he got out of the barbed wire and climbed up the pile of boxes, pants-less, he found that the ladders were occupied by just about everyone trying to get across them all at the same time. They really should have taken turns, Leo thought, as one of the ladders slipped from the weight, sending about twelve guys onto the floor, but they all wanted the glory of being promoted from fruitcake to manly man.

Leo wanted that glory too, so he mustered what courage he had left and grabbed a ladder. But before he launched himself into the mass of sweaty guys, a sudden thought occurred to him. There was no real rule about how you had to cross the ladder, except for the fact that you couldn't touch the ground. Most of the guys went across the top, but maybe Leo could go across the bottom, using the ladder rungs as monkey bars. Despite the loss of his pants, he felt a rising sense of confidence. He wasn't going to be the fruitcake today.

Leo grabbed the first rung with one hand and the second with the other, jumping into the gap and letting himself fall. He just about tore his arms out of their sockets, but he was now dangling from the bottom of the ladder, his feet barely missing the ground. He took note of that and scrunched his legs up so there would be no danger of a stray foot accidentally dragging across the floor.

From there, it was a breeze. Monkey bars were one of Leo's favorite playground items. He made it across without much trouble, although the wooden ladder rungs rubbed his hands raw and probably gave him a few splinters, and one time he accidentally grabbed the waistband of a guy's shorts instead of a rung, which was really weird, but he made it. His nonexistent abs were aching from the effort of keeping his legs scrunched up the whole way across.

Next up, the rope swing. Only a few guys had made it this far already; most were still struggling with the ladders. There were about four guys from the football team, and Mr. Every Hair in Place, A.K.A. Whitney Applegate. Leo wondered how he'd made it this far. If anyone was the pure definition of 'fruitcake', it would be Whitney.

Leo's already aching and splintered hands were not looking forward to grabbing onto the thick, bristly rope. The football team guys made it across the gap and threw the rope back to Whitney, who caught it and got ready to swing across. Now, Leo wasn't about to let a guy like Whitney beat him at this, so at the last second he grabbed the rope and the two boys were hanging in the middle together.

"What's your problem?" Whitney growled through teeth gritted with determination.

"I'm not gonna be beaten by you, buddy," Leo said. "So, what's your problem?"

"My problem? My problem is that we're stuck. Because of you, idiot."

Leo realized that he was probably right. They weren't making any real progress across the gap, just hanging in the middle. If Leo listened really hard, he thought he could hear the rope snapping just a bit. He didn't dare look up, because he was afraid that if he did, he'd see it fraying right in front of his face.

A wolf whistle echoed from the ladder side, and a voice called, "Just hanging out, lovebirds?"

Whitney's face turned bright red and he called Leo a few nasty names. His blonde hair, usually gelled perfectly in place, was now falling down into his eyes as he shook the rope, trying in vain to get it to move. "Stupid - rotten - rope - move!"

After a great deal of rope shaking, they finally got a decent amount of movement, and when they got close to the edge it was apparent that Whitney was going to end up closer to the boxes than Leo was. In a desperate attempt to get there first, Leo used what little arm strength he had and pushed himself up, swinging around and using Whitney's shoulders as a springboard for his jump. When he made the jump, he felt pretty graceful and awesome, but he probably just looked like a baby bird trying to fly before it really knew what wings were for.

Leo ended up face-planting on the box, which really hurt, but he managed to grab on to something and scramble up. Before making his jump down, he looked back at Whitney, who was once again stranded in the middle and appeared to be very angry.

He flashed a triumphant smile at Whitney, feeling very impressed with himself. He'd beaten Mr. Every Hair In Place (Whose Hair Was No Longer In Place) without pants!

After jumping down from the box pile, he grabbed a nectarine and crouched once again. he wasn't going to be the first one done; the football guys were already close to the finish, but he'd still be one of the fastest times in the class, and that was a plus. Then he could add 'Death Gauntlet Prodigy' to his monster fightin', world savin' resume.

And so the Nectarine Nudge began. Leo really hoped those girls weren't still hanging around, because who wouldn't feel just a little self-conscious about shoving a nectarine across a gym floor using your face?

At least this part was easy, Leo thought. And he'd be beating Whitney. Slowly but surely, he made his way across the gym floor. He was about halfway there when he sensed someone coming up behind him. He risked a split second to turn around and see who was challenging his sort-of lead, and had a little tiny heart attack when he saw it was Whitney.

How did he catch up so fast? Leo had to have had at least a five minute head start on him! Leo's heart rate sped up as he tried to put more of a distance between them, but Whitney was intent on catching up, and pretty soon they were neck-and-neck, about twenty feet away from the finish line. Both were crawling along the floor as fast as they possibly could without losing control of their nectarines, and Leo was starting to think he might be able to pull ahead, when the unthinkable happened.

Whitney's arm quickly darted out, and his hand made contact with Leo's nectarine. Leo started to panic, trying everything in his power to keep the nectarine under control, but the fruit rolled away. Leo side-crawled, trying to catch up with it, and hoping no one would notice, but the fruit was too fast. (How embarrassing is that? He was slower than a stupid fruit!) Then he hit something. Something that wasn't his nectarine.

He looked to the side and saw tennis shoes. He looked up and saw Mr. Lawson, arms crossed and looking very serious. He uttered the fateful words,

"Back to the beginning, Fruitcake."

* * *

**The Death Gauntlet was really hard to make up... and no, none of it's based on personal experience. My school does NOT have a Nectarine Nudge. *shakes head furiously***


	5. Leo the Relieved

**Fun Fact: I have four tests this week! You guys are lucky I got the nerve to write in the midst of all this studying! (Actually, I'm not studying at the moment, but SHH! That can be our little secret) Hmm...so I'm having one of those really hyper Mondays ...during math class my friend told me she was forced to go to a Renaissance festival over the weekend and I was like, "DID YOU JOUST AND EAT TURKEY LEGZZZZ?!" and she put her head down on her desk and said in a really small voice "Yeah..." **

**You guys should check out The Minun's story "Demigods: Endangered Species". It's pretty good. We read each other's reviews in homeroom sometimes. XD**

**Props to PJoHoOFan and DivergentDemigodTribute for reviewing! YOU GUYS GET TO JOUST AND EAT TURKEY LEGS WITH ME!**

* * *

"Today we'll be reviewing the excretory system, so pull out your notebooks and take some notes, because this will be on your test."

There was that scuffle of noise as everyone started digging around in their bags for a pen and some paper. Leo flipped his blue pen up in the air and tried to catch it in his mouth, but it didn't go as planned; he'd taken a huge mouthful of nothing and pretty much looked like an idiot. Good thing he was in health, which was an all-boys' class, so the girls wouldn't see him acting like a fool. They had plenty of other opportunities during the day for that.

And it was a fortunate thing that the Blond Fruitcake, Whitney Applegate, hadn't been looking his way, or he'd have gotten another earful of something that went along the lines of "You're more of an idiot than a child of Aphrodite." Without the child of Aphrodite part, of course. What did he have against witty, smart, and dashingly handsome Latino demigods?

Now, Leo wasn't the kind of guy who liked to hold a grudge, but that Whitney fellow was really pushing his luck. He'd been a Hades-league jerk since day one and hadn't gotten any better since. He had made Leo lose control of his nectarine during the Death Gauntlet, for Zeus's sake! Leo still wanted to chop him up and throw him into Tartarus for that one.

The health teacher waited until they were all ready to go - or at least over fifty percent of them were ready to go - and began his lecture.

"The excretory system collects waste products created by your body cells and removes them from your body through the process of excretion."

Leo found himself already leaning heavily on his right hand, his eyes drooping slightly. He looked at the clock, but it hadn't moved an inch from where it had been the last time he checked.

"Excretion is the removal of wastes, water, and urea, which is a chemical that comes from the breakdown of proteins. Now, when you think about excretion, you probably think urine."

Leo shifted slightly. It would be just his luck to have to go the bathroom now, wouldn't it? Luckily, the urge disappeared after a few seconds.

"But there are other ways your body removes wastes. For example, perspiration. When you sweat, urea and water are being eliminated from your body. That's why you have to drink a lot when you work out, or you'll get dehydrated."

Even Leo knew most of this, and he'd slept through most of junior high biology.

"Your lungs are even a part of excretion. The gas exchange taking place in the alveoli replaces oxygen with carbon dioxide, and the carbon dioxide is eliminated. But now, we'll discuss how the urinary process works. In the kidneys are tiny structures called nephrons. The nephrons filter by taking the needed materials and the wastes from the bloodstream. The needed materials are returned and the wastes form what we call urine."

Nature was calling again, and Leo was pretty sure it wasn't going to go away without a fight this time. He tensed, trying his hardest to forget about it. He really shouldn't have drank that whole bottle of lemon-lime Gatorade during second hour.

"The ureters transport the urine from the kidneys to the urinary bladder, where the urine is stored until which time it can be eliminated through the urethra."

Leo's urinary bladder was about to explode. It was full to bursting. "Um, can I go to the bathroom?" Leo asked, raising his hand slightly.

"Wait until the lesson is over, Valdez," the teacher said, checking his watch. "It should be only five more minutes."

Leo bit his lip, sweating just a bit. Five minutes wasn't bad. Five minutes was nothing. In five short minutes he'd be out of there, and in the bathroom. Relief.

"Now, interestingly, when you feel the urge to go, your bladder isn't even all the way full."

Why couldn't the stupid bladder get all the way full before giving him grief?! _You've got room in there_, Leo thought to his bladder (Yeah, it was a new low for him. Talking to his bladder). _Fill it up first!_ When the urge only got stronger, he added weakly,_ Less than five minutes!_

"But once you do have to go, the urine is eliminated through an opening called the urethra. That's when you flush it down, and it's gone!"

Leo pressed his legs as close together as he could.

"That's about all for today, you can pack up your stuff and leave when the bell rings. After we cover the cardiovascular system tomorrow, we'll have one review day before the test."

Leo scrutinized the second hand on the clock closely, watching the seconds tick away to 10:00, when the bell would ring. When the second hand reached the eleven, Leo was about ready to bounce out of his chair. Finally it reached the twelve, and Leo grabbed a strap of his backpack… and the bell didn't ring.

Seriously. It didn't ring.

The other guys were joking around, laughing and making jokes and talking about football, and normally Leo would have joined them - or tried to - but his situation was too precarious to do anything but sit there, eyes glued to the clock. He had done the Death Gauntlet in his underwear, he did not need another embarrassing thing on his plate. It was now fifteen seconds past ten, and the dumb bell was late. Why would anyone do that? Why would the bell be late? Did anyone even control the bells? If someone did, they should die and be sewn into Hades's gym shorts for eternity.

Finally -_ forty seconds past ten o'clock_ - the tinny-sounding bell rang, and Leo was the first one out of the room. There was a bathroom right down the hall from the health room, and he made a beeline for it before anyone else had even left the room.

Aaaaaaaah. Relief.

* * *

Leo had been very cautious about his bathroom visits since the incident in health class, making a pit stop every hour, especially making sure to go before math. He didn't want Stodge to have the satisfaction of not letting him go to the john.

He walked into class, sat down, and looked up at the board, which said on it: _5th hour class - I will be back in five minutes. Do not behave in a disruptive manner and copy down the notes on the board._ Below that message were the notes to copy. Leo took out a pencil, clicked it a couple times, and realized it was out of lead. He reached into his backpack and grabbed another one, which also happened to be out of lead. It was the third week of school, how does a guy use that much lead so fast?

Leo pulled out a third pencil, and when he couldn't get any lead out of that one either, e was pretty sure his pencils were all part of a conspiracy together. A "Let's Troll Leo!" conspiracy.

After trying five pencils, Leo just gave up. He sighed, staring at his notebook, without anything to write in it with. He tore off a corner of the page, crumpled it up, and flicked it off his desk. It bounced off the chair of the guy who sat in front of him. He ripped off a bit more, crumpled that one up too, and flicked it. This one went a little higher and hit the back of the guy's neck. The guy turned around with a quizzical expression.

Leo shrugged at him, as if to say _Man, I don't know where that came from_. The guy just picked up his pencil and turned around again.

Leo ripped off a little more paper, this time aiming at a pencil case that was perched high on top of a pile of textbooks, a few desks away from him. He missed the first few times he tried, but the fourth it hit its mark.

The next few minutes were spent with Leo making small projectiles and trying to hit various things that were somewhat close to his desk. When he reached for more paper, and realized he'd used the whole page, he just raised an eyebrow and started on the next page.

As he was taking careful aim at the clock, Leo felt a shadow fall over him. He looked up to see Mrs. Stodge, and as always, she didn't look too happy. Her arms were crossed and she was looking down at him over the rims of her glasses.

"Uh, hi there," Leo said, slightly guiltily. He quickly flipped the page of his notebook over so she wouldn't pick up on the fact that he'd been spending the last five minutes slowly ripping up his math notebook.

"You wrote nothing this whole time?" she asked, voice raising slightly in pitch.

"Oh, hey, let's not draw conclusions like that," Leo said hastily. "Um, my pencil ran out of lead."

Mrs. Stodge picked up one of the many pencils lying discarded on his desk, clicked it a couple times, and lead appeared. She gave Leo and I'm-not-amused glare.

Yeah. Leo's pencils were definitely trolling him.

At least she hadn't seen him flicking paper everywhere. He had a hunch she wouldn't take too kindly to that either.

She made to go to the front of the classroom, but then stopped and added, "You'll be staying after class to clean all the paper you left on my floor."

Leo took a quick glance at the floor, where quite a few of his crumpled-up paper bits were scattered in an almost snow-like layer that extended about three feet away from his desk in all directions. Leo's mouth twisted into a wry smile.

Why did he even try?

* * *

**To write the excretory system part, I actually dug through all my Life Science notes from last year to find the right information.**

**I WANTED MAH FACTS TO BE RIGHT. **

**Don't you guys hate it when the clock clearly hits the right time and the bell doesn't ring, so you're just sitting there awkwardly holding your backpack? (Unless, of course, you're in my History class where we're not even allowed to pack up until the bell rings). And, for that matter, don't you ALSO hate it when your pencils are obviously out of lead, and then someone asks you for a pencil, and you give them the one with no lead (Don't call me a jerk, hardly anyone in my class ever gives pencils back! D:) but then they click it a couple times and lead appears and they're like "Okay, thanks!" And you're just like -_- **


	6. Leo the Band Geek

**I'm sorry for leaving you all for, well, who knows how long... but what's new in your lives? Never mind, I don't really need to know. But today in drama class, I got to pretend to be Miley Cyrus... O_o (Actually, it was rather fun, because I got an excuse to be a complete maniac XD)**

**As a band geek myself, this chapter was fun to write. :) **

**Thanks to PJoHoOFan, RosesandThorns11 (Ugh, there's a guy in my class like that, too :P), and FanCrazyBookWorm101 (Can totally relate! :D) for reviewing! **

* * *

**Chapter 6 - Leo the Band Geek**

"Red light, class! The announcements are going!"

Leo sighed at 'red light'. His English teacher seemed to be under the impression that she was teaching a first-grade class rather than a junior class. He didn't want to be _mean_, though, right? She was still a good tea-... actually, no, Leo wasn't going to lie. Not worth it.

The principal's voice over the loudspeaker was crackly and barely understandable, but the students managed to get the majority of the message. Well, most of the students. Leo was sitting next to a couple of chatty girls - what could he say? He was a ladies' man! - and they completely disregarded the rules of the "red light".

Whatever it was, it must have been something bad, because a lot of the guys started yelling and some of the girls were moaning and complaining in that whiny voice that only girls have. Leo was sure some people would say to that, "_Don't say things like that, Leo you sexist pig_!" but he was dead serious. Have _you_ ever heard a _guy_ whine in a high-pitched, ear-piercing voice?

Leo didn't think so.

Whiny voice or no, Leo did really want to know what the announcement was, so for once in his life, he raised his hand to ask a question. He looked the model of a perfect obedient schoolboy who had a genuine, credible, intelligent question.

Actually, Leo didn't really raise his hand. He just said loudly, "What'd he say? I didn't hear."

Hey, at least it was still a genuine, credible, intelligent question, right?

The English teacher, Mrs. Lacy, frowned at him, like, _What, you weren't listening? You're a terrible six-year-old and you're not getting any animal crackers at snack time_. "He said that all students will be required to take a fine arts class, starting on Monday."

"Fine art?" Leo asked to no one in particular. When a random girl looked back at him, he said a little louder, "My face is classified as fine art in seven different countries," and flashed a smile at her.

"Yeah, maybe a Picasso," she replied.

Leo was slightly taken aback at this unexpected praise, and was about to say something else when she took a sheet of paper out of her folder and passed it back to him, smiling sweetly. "Picasso."

Was that even a _person_ in that picture? Its neck was bent in ways that necks can't bend… and one of its eyes was in the middle of its forehead… and it looked like its nose was coming out of its ear… suddenly Leo wasn't so flattered.

The guy who sat in front of him then said, sounding a little frustrated, "Dude! Are you going to take this or not?" Leo noticed the guy was holding a stack of papers and shoving them in his face.

"Yeah, thanks," Leo muttered, taking a paper off the top of the stack and passing the rest back. He looked over the sheet, barely able to make out the words due to his dyslexia, but he managed to tell that it was a list of class choices. There was choir, and drama, and about three different kinds of art classes. Oh, and band. Leo thought it might be kind of fun to be in band. After all, didn't the band guys get to go to all the sports events for free and hang out with the cheerleaders and the girls' volleyball team?

Oh, yeah, Leo could get into that. He pulled out a pencil and checked the box for 'BAND', then passing it in to the front.

This was gonna be fun.

* * *

On Monday, Leo walked into band class with a new pair of drumsticks that the Apollo cabin had so kindly given him after he fixed their regurgitating toilet. Yeah, that was kind of a long story, but it turned out that Will Solace had just decided to have a little fun with plumbing.

A lot of the kids had already put their instruments together, except a few of the clarinet and saxophone players were sucking on the thing that goes into the mouthpiece. Leo didn't know what they were called.

Leo walked up behind a trumpet player, who was testing the button things, he guessed to make sure they would bounce back up like they were supposed to, but again, he really wasn't sure. There was a small bottle of a clear liquid in his case, and Leo snatched it up, reading the label out loud: "Valve and slide oil. Caution: May be harmful if taken internally. Do not induce vomiting. Call a physician. Contains petroleum distillates." He raised an eyebrow. "Yum, potions." He held up the bottle to the trumpet player's friend, who was putting together a clarinet. "Did you bring your potions?"

Clarinet Girl rolled her eyes at him, and reached over to close her own case, but Leo was faster, pulling out a small tube of something that looked like chapstick and said "cork grease" on the label.

"You get chapstick?" he exclaimed.

"No," she said. "No, I don't. Just don't put it on your -"

She was too late. Leo had taken off the cap and swiped a finger across the top, rubbing it on his lips and immediately starting to choke. "IT BURNS! WATER! GIVE ME WATER!" He ran out to the drinking fountain and chugged down about fifteen gallons of water before coming back in, careful to avoid the clarinet players and their chapstick of doom.

The other drummers were hanging out in the back, and a few of the guys were crowded around the keyboard playing around with the special effects. Leo made his way back to the rest of them pulled his drumsticks out of his back pocket. Before he could say anything to them, the class fell silent, because the band director was standing at the front, holding his fancy directing stick. (Leo was getting tired of saying he didn't know what things were.)

"All right class, pull out your sheet music for the school march." There was a rustling as everyone dug through their folders to get their music, and Leo yelled,

"I DON'T HAVE IT?"

The director looked at Leo. "Oh, you're one of the ones who just transferred to this class." He rifled through a few papers, then handing him one that said "Percussion 2" at the top.

Leo tapped the guy next to him with a drumstick. "What do I do? Looks like the drums are taken." He motioned towards the two snare drums and the bass drum, both of which had people at them.

"Here, play this," the guy said, shoving something into his hands. It looked like a little metal triangle. But it wasn't a very good triangle, because it was kind of open at the end.

The director counted them off, and they started to play, but Leo was completely lost. He weakly hit the metal thing with his drumsticks a couple times, sure he was looking like an absolute fool.

Then everyone stopped, and Leo became aware that everyone was looking at him. He smiled awkwardly. "Hey guys."

The director came to the back of the room and stood in front of Leo, crossing his arms. "What is it?" he asked.

"Um… this… is a cute little metal thing?"

"Leo. That is called a hit it with a stick. And it makes noise." The guy next to him who'd given him the triangle helpfully held up a little matching metal stick.

"Uh… what about this?" Leo asked, holding up a little mini-drum that had holes in the side with metal pieces that made shaky noises when he moved it.

"LEO. That is a tambourine."

"Oh! So… how do you play it?"

"You tap it."

Leo held it over his head. "Like this?"

"No…"

Leo put it on his knee. "Like this?"

"No."

Leo put it between his legs. "How about this?"

A lot of the girls screeched in terror. "NO LEO VALDEZ THAT IS JUST DISGUSTING!"

"Like this, then?" Leo pulled out a roll of duct tape from his backpack, ripped off a strip of tape, and attached it to his chest. "AAAAGHAAHGHAGHAGHAGHAGH!" He smacked the tambourine on his chest like King Kong.

The director's face was turning redder than the Ares cabin. "Listen, Valdez. The bell is going to ring in five minutes. You have tomorrow to make me change my mind about drop-kicking you out of this class."

Leo was up for the challenge.

* * *

**Ah, Picasso. Last year in one of my classes we all had to do a presentation on a Picasso painting, and one of the boys in my class didn't have his picture on his slideshow, and the teacher asked why. His reply, "Because the filtering system classified it as porn." XD**

**It almost hurt to pretend to not know band terms like 'reed', 'baton', etc... let me reassure you, I KNOW WHAT ALL THOSE THINGS ARE!**

**Oh, also there was a bit of a Harry Potter reference in this chapter! Anyone catch it? REVIEW OR PM ME IF YOU DID! It was kind of subtle, so I'm not sure if anyone's gonna get it... **


	7. Leo the (Full Title Didn't Fit XD)

**Yes, I died. I died for a month. But I came back. I KNOW I ABANDONED POOR LEO AND ALL THE REST OF YOU FOR SO LONG AND YOU ALL HATE ME BUT I'M HERE NOW! WE CAN MAKE THIS WORK! *sappy violin music begins playing in the background* This chapter is kinda divided into two parts. The first part I wrote on a whim. The second was planned.**

**PJoHoOFan WAS THE ONLY REVIEWER! GOOD FOR YOU! (Your pen name is hard to type, because I have a hard time remembering which letters are supposed to be capitalized XD)**

* * *

**Chapter 7 - Leo the Cosmetic Magician / Slapstick Aficionado**

Leo wasn't going to get kicked out of band. Band was supposed to be an easy class! All you had to do was show up and play, right? As if Leo wasn't already humiliated enough at this place, now he was borderline on fired from his elective.

Once Leo got to school, he realized his mistake - the first of many he would make that day. He was still wearing his tool belt.

Leo wanted to beat himself over the head with a monkey wrench. Like a fool, he must've strapped on his tool belt out of habit when he woke up. He briefly wondered why no one else had pointed it out to him at camp before he left, but he supposed they were so used to seeing him with it that he would've looked more wrong without.

So now what? He was just supposed to go walking around school looking like Bob the Builder? Just give him overalls and a yellow plastic hat, and maybe a few talking trucks, and he'd be all set! _Can we fix it? Yes we can! _

He'd stopped Jason in the hallway before class and urgently whispered, "Hey, man, what am I supposed to do with this thing?" He motioned at his tool belt with a panicked look on his face.

Jason frowned, putting on that _I'm a problem-solving hero _face. "Just put it in your locker."

"Are you crazy? My magical awesome tool belt of power? There's no way I'd be comfortable with leaving it in there! You do know how easy it is to break into those things, right?" Jason gave him a look, like, _And how would you know, exactly? _which Leo ignored. "Come on, Superman, you gotta come through for me on this one."

"Do you think my coat would be big enough to cover it up?" Jason asked. Leo considered how big Jason's coat would be. He was a pretty tall guy, but Jason had considerably more muscle on him. Still, the tool belt hung down kinda low, and it was relatively bulky.

"Nah, I don't think so. Not unless I wrapped it around my waist like a kilt or something."

"Well, I don't know what to tell you!" Jason said helplessly. "We're going to be late to class unless you can think of something soon."

"Um… um…" Leo felt kind of bad about what he was going to do to his friend, but he couldn't afford to be late to homeroom, and whether he would admit it or not, he had no other solution. He took off his tool belt, shoved it into Jason's arms, and took off down the hallway.

"Hey! Leo! What-" Jason said loudly, and, Leo thought, a little indignantly, but Leo didn't look back, taking the whole route to Mrs. Stodge's room at a brisk jog… which, for some people, might look all professional and cool, but Leo thought he looked more like he was trying to imitate an _empousa'_s walk.

He sat down at his desk just as the bell was ringing. He kind of hoped Jason hadn't just dropped the tool belt on the ground and hurried to class, but he was pretty sure he could count on his friend to help him out of a rough spot. Leo owed him one.

"That was a rather close call, was it not, Mr. Valdez?" Mrs. Stodge asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Nah," Leo said nonchalantly. "I'm the fastest guy this side of the Mississippi River." When a couple people gave him dubious glances, he added, "The fastest Valdez this side of the Mississippi River." After a couple seconds' awkward silence, he sighed and said, "The _only _Valdez this side of the Mississippi River. Well, as far as I know. Unless my Aunt Rosa decided Texas was dumb and wanted to come out east. But, still. I'm pretty sure I can run faster than my Aunt Rosa."

"Would you kindly be quiet so we can hear the announcements?" Mrs. Stodge snapped.

"Sure thing," Leo said weakly.

The announcements were same old, same old, take a performing arts elective, say the pledge to the flag, student council, football, volleyball, don't bully, wear deodorant, yours in demigodishness and all that, peace out.

Maybe Leo had improvised a bit on the last part because he didn't _really _remember what they said, but it was the same idea, in general. Sort of.

After homeroom was over, Leo wasted no time in finding Jason, who was wearing Leo's tool belt.

"Thanks, man," Leo said. "I'll keep the belt in my locker, I guess. It'll be safe enough, I just kind of panicked earlier."

A few girls around them giggled, and Leo wasn't quite sure why. Were his good looks and charm driving them loopy?

"All right, just a minute," Jason said, reaching into his locker and taking out his books for his next class.

"I really owe you one."

Jason gave him a mischievous - and _very _out-of-character - smile, saying, "Yeah, I had a lot of fun in homeroom telling everyone about how I was keeping my friend Leo Valdez's tool belt safe. It got even better when I told them that you kept your makeup in here."

"But I don't-"

Jason reached into a pouch and pulled out a tube of lipstick and and a tube of mascara. "Apparently, you do."

Leo's mouth dropped open in indignation. Since when could that thing summon cosmetics? "Everything I said about owing you? It's off, Grace," Leo said, grabbing his tool belt back from his extremely diabolical friend.

* * *

And Leo thought the tool belt would be the worst part of the day. How very, very wrong he was.

He walked into band class, positive that he had this whole instrument thing down, but his plans crashed and burned when he found out that the band director wasn't there.

"He was rushed to the emergency room this morning," one of the saxophone players explained to him, although he was a little hard to understand because he was sucking on his reed the entire time. (Leo still wasn't sure why they did that. Did it need to be salivated upon before it was suitable for playing?) "The jazz band had their practice this morning, and they kept getting the same measure wrong every time. When people mess up, the director likes to stand on a chair and yell, because I guess he thinks it helps them understand things better. And one of the legs on the chair broke, and he fell, and I think I heard he broke his collarbone."

"So, what are we going to do?" Leo asked. He'd been so ready to show off his new-found musical talents.

"What do you mean? We've got a sub." At the same time that Saxophone Boy said that, Leo heard a different voice saying, "Class? Come to order immediately!"

If he'd been drinking anything at the moment, he'd have done a spit take. "No. No. No." He turned back to Saxophone Boy. "Please tell it's not her."

"Why?" he replied. "What's wrong with Mrs. Stodge?"

Leo was doomed.

* * *

When the class finally fell into something resembling order, Mrs. Stodge made everyone play a few scales, and Leo was perfectly fine with hiding in the background for that part. When she told everyone to take out one of their songs, though, he couldn't keep quiet. Because, well, he was Leo Valdez, hyperactive idiot.

"Do you even know how to direct?" he exclaimed.

"Did someone speak?" she asked. "Because I saw no hand." Leo personally thought it was dumb how teachers did that.

But apparently one of the other kids who had heard his question were wondering the same thing, because someone raised their hand and asked the exact same question.

"I have never had any formal training," she replied, inspecting the director's baton like she was wondering how she was going to smack Leo with it. "But when I was in high school, I did play the flute in the band."

Every flute player in the front row surreptitiously moved their chairs backwards six inches.

"What should I play on this song?" Leo asked, poking the guy next to him.

"Here," he said irritably, shoving something that just looked like two pieces of wood that were put together at one end. "It's a slapstick."

"Do I slap someone with it? Can I choose who I slap? Don't clowns use these things?" Leo picked up one of the pieces of wood, then letting it drop onto the other.

The guy snatched the slapstick back, lifted his arm, and thrust it down. The slapstick made a loud slapping noise. "That's how you play. Too difficult for you?"

"Not at all," Leo reassured him. "I am a musical prodigy. Yesterday I was just learning the ropes." The other guy didn't look convinced, but he shrugged, grabbed his drumsticks, and walked over to the snare drum.

"Start at measure thirteen!" Mrs. Stodge announced. Leo thought she was holding the baton in a rather threatening stance.

They started playing, and when it reached the part with the slapstick, Leo did the slap, but instead of hitting the other piece of wood, the slappy part hit his hand, which like a fool he'd been stupid enough to not think about.

"Yeoooow!" he yelped, causing everyone else to stop playing. As the song died down, Mrs. Stodge looked at him with an eyebrow raised.

"I hurt myself with the slapstick," Leo said. "Won't happen again, sorry."

"How do you hurt yourself with the slapstick?!" someone asked. "And who gave him the slapstick anyway?" the bass drum player asked.

The guy playing the snare drum flushed, looking furious.

"Hey! You wouldn't be like that if it was you who got slapped!" Leo protested. "Come here!" The bass drum guy shook his head, like, _What, how stupid do you think I am, man? _"Okay, then, I'll come to you!" Leo went over to the bass drum, grabbed the guy's arm, shoved his hand under the slapstick, and slapped. "See! These slappy pieces of wood hurt!"

The other guy staggered away, red-faced, clutching his hand, and hissing swear words through gritted teeth.

"How about you play the gong?" the snare drum player suggested, throwing Leo a stick that had what appeared to be a large cotton ball attached on the end. "You can't mess up the gong. You just hit the middle of that gigantic circle with the fluffy side of that thing." He pointed at the gong, a large disk that was tied to a frame that held it up. "And it's only in the song once, at the very end."

"Fine, guys. But I'm a slapstick aficionado, just saying." Leo hefted the cotton-ball stick, and the band began to play again.

Finally, the end of the song drew near, and Leo prepared himself to hit the gong. How on earth would he miss the gong? He wouldn't. It was gigantic. When the trumpets played the last note, Leo hit the gong dead-on, but it didn't make the noise it was supposed to.

Instead, it made a crashing noise, because somehow Leo hit the stupid thing so hard that it was untied from the frame. The huge - and no doubt heavy - disk was on the ground. And that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was when Leo took a close look at the damage and saw that the disk was cracked almost in two.

He muttered something unprintable, feeling sick.

So much for musical prodigy.

* * *

**I had to watch the "beginning band" concert at my school this week, and there was this really short blond kid playing the slapstick, and he was doing it all wrong. There was no slapping noise being made whatsoever. XD **


End file.
